TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

I managed to pick up an interesting though smaller list of books last month.  These range from fiction, to biography and semi-biography, to a tour guide, and finally to my typical battle and campaign studies.  I am particularly excited to finally get my hands on Forrest at Brice’s Crossroads for a good price.  I’ve already […]

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After staring each other down on the 18th, with both catching a much needed breather, Lee finally withdrew his army from Sharpsburg and was able to cross the Potomac during September 19-20. Though McClellan did try to strike at Lee, most notably at Shepherdstown, Lee’s rear guard was formidable enough that officers throughout the Army […]

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Although McClellan had largely stayed out of the political fray through 1862, Rafuse argued that McClellan’s most ardent supporters could not deny that McClellan actively worked to delay reinforcing Pope during the Second Manassas campaign once the Army of the Potomac was evacuated from the Peninsula. McClellan ultimately got what he wanted out of Pope’s […]

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Part 2 of my review of Rafuse’s McClellan bio left off with the Army of the Potomac landing at Fort Monroe to begin the Peninsula Campaign. McClellan had already faced a number of issues in planning the campaign even before reaching the jumpoff point. The first option for the landing spot (Urbana) had been scrapped, […]

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In Part 1 of my review of Ethan Rafuse’s recent McClellan bio, we left off after Chapter 4. With the nation teetering on the brink of war, McClellan supported Stephen Douglas’s successful Senate reelection campaign against Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln went on to win the presidency in 1860 due to the split of the Democrats, and […]

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To complete my undergraduate history degree last Spring, I was required to write a thesis driven paper at least 20 standard pages long. After getting some guidance from my supervising professors, I wrote a paper twice that size on the historiography and public perception of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Conversely, I am not sure a paper […]

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